Canada comes to film in Gippsland
Opening titles of the Canadian series, Hard Rock Medical
It was lights, camera and action in Gippsland in late February, with a film crew from Canada in the area to gather information and some visuals for a documentary on rural clinical schools.
The documentary, tentatively titled ‘Rural, Remote and Revolutionary: The real story behind Hard Rock Medical’, is designed to accompany a 13-part dramatic TV series loosely based on the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) in Canada, where Professor Roger Strasser, one of the main drivers in development of the School of Rural Health model, is now based.
The series, ‘Hard Rock Medical’ is a joint Canada-Australia production and will include an Australian dimension, so it made sense that the production team comes to Gippsland where the rural health model was originally developed.
The first series of the program will be shown on NITV (SBS 3) beginning in June/July.
The aim of the trip , according to Thunderstone Pictures Inc producer Dave Clement, was to “help flush out the story of the pre-NOSM Australian work that informed the innovative approaches he [Roger Strasser] implemented in Northern Ontario.”
The film crew spent a couple of days in Gippsland with Professor Strasser, with some filming at the Gippsland Regional Clinical School and at MUDRIH in the old Latrobe Valley Hospital in Moe, where the Centre for Rural Health which later became the School of Rural Health was based.
While in Australia the team also visited Alice Springs to gain information on training of rural physicians for remote Australia. They will spend time at NOSM in Canada, where Professor Strasser is the Dean, to develop the documentary.